The Kalamazoo Wings kick off their 39th season of professional hockey tonight on the road as they battle a new, yet familiar old foe.

Taking the ice against the Fort Wayne Komets, who along with the Evansville Iceman, defected from the Central Hockey League to join the K-Wings in the ECHL. The three teams, along with the Toledo Walleye and Cincinnati Cyclones make up the North Division in the Eastern Conference.

Head Coach Nick Bootland is looking forward to starting the season against the K-Wings arch rival. “It’s exciting to have the on back on board,” Bootland said. “They always work very hard to make sure, whatever league they are in, that they are competitive and we know it’s going to be a battle every night (facing them).”

Bootland also appreciates the rivalry that exists between the two fan bases.

“To have that two hour ride and have fans going to both buildings, it’s always an unbelievable atmosphere to play in and coach in as well,” he added.

After wrapping up a rather short training camp, Bootland said that all players had their chance to shine before cuts were made.

“I really feel that everyone got their opportunity to come in here showcase themselves during training camp, regardless if it was short or not,” he said.

Saying that the organization made it clear in the recruiting process that they were not going to have an opportunity to come in and get their feet wet.

“I don’t feel we shortchanged anyone and I think everyone had their chance,” he said. “Most of the guys that were released played in both games. There’s nothing we could do about that (short training camp). It was the nature of the beast this year.”

For the first time in 12 seasons, the K-Wings bench staff will feature an assistant coach.

Josh Harrold, whose older brother Peter is a defenseman for the New Jersey Devils, is no stranger to hockey himself.

Before spending the past two seasons as the head coach of the Cleveland Lumberjacks Junior A Under 18 and 16 team, Harrold was also the assistant coach with the Alpena Icediggers of the NAHL and the assistant of the Ohio Blue Jackets of the USHL.

For Bootland, the extra set of eyes will be invaluable on the ice as well as off.

“Having one more person to do the work, whether it is assigning apartments, you know, we are getting double the work done in the same amount of time,” he said. “It’s highly beneficial and we are very excited about that.”

Page 2 of 2 - Bootland expects tough competition within the ranks as the players fight for ice time.

“We have enough talent on every single line that’s going to be out there, that pretty much every guy in our lineup can play on the power play,” Bootland said. “It’s going to be whoever is hot at the right time, that’s whose going to get the ice time and that’s how we are going to push each other to be even better.”

One area that Bootland hopes the K-Wings will improve upon at the beginning of this season as compared to last season is special teams. More specifically, the penalty kill.

“Our penalty kill had a horrendous start of the year last year and we couldn’t dig ourselves out of the hole,” Bootland said. “We did a great job in the post-season on the penalty kill, but we want to start there, we don’t want to finish there.”

One issue that looms large over minor league hockey is the NHL lockout. While there is uncertainty in the hockey world, Bootland feels that the K-Wings will be just fine.

“We understand that this is going to be a tough year for hockey players in general, but we are going to have to make some decisions and we want to be the best partner (to the Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Wolves) we can be without hurting our program when things go back to normal,” he said.

Following Friday night's game against the Komets, the K-Wings will travel to Toledo on Saturday to take on the Walleye.